1805 MRS. THOMAS CLARKSON 309 I did not dare tell you so, but I send you some poor lines which I wrote under this conviction of mind, and before I heard Coleridge was returning home. I will transcribe them now before I finish my letter, lest a false shame prevent me then, for I know they are much worse than they ought to be, written as they were with strong feeling and on such a subject. Every line seems to me to be borrowed, but I had no better way of expressing my thoughts, and I never have the power of altering or amending anything I have once laid aside with dissatisfaction. Why is he wandering on the sea? Coleridge should now with Wordsworth be. (So happily he'd time relief) Of comfort from their very grief. He'd tell them that their brother dead When years have passed o'er their head, Will be remember'd with such holy, True, and perfect melancholy That ever this lost brother John Will be their heart's companion. His voice they'll always hear, his face they'll always see, Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson came to see us last week, I find it was at your request they sought us out; you cannot think how glad we were to see them, so little as we have ever seen of them, yet they seem to us like very old friends. Poor Mrs. Clarkson looks very ill indeed, she walked near a mile, and came up our high stairs, which fatigued her very much, but when she had sat a while her own natural countenance with which she cheared us in your little cottage seemed to return to her, and then I began to have hopes she would get the better of her complaint. Charles does not think she is so much altered as I do. I wish he may be the better judge. We talked of nothing but you. She means to try to get leave of Dr. Beddoes to come and see you-her heart is with you, and I do not think it would hurt her so much to come to you, as it would distress you to see her so ill. She read me a part of your letter wherein you so kindly express your wishes that we would come and see you this summer. I wish we could, for I am sure it would be a blessed thing for you and for us to be a few weeks together-I fear it must not be. Mrs. Clarkson is to be in town again in a fortnight and then they have promised we shall see more of them. I am very sorry for the poor little Dorothy's illness-I hope soon to hear she is perfectly recovered. Remember me with affection to your brother, and your good sister. What a providence it is that your brother and you have this kind friend, and these dear little ones-I rejoice with her and with you that your brother is employed upon his poem again. Pray remember us to Old Molly. Mrs. Clarkson says her house is a pattern of neatness to all her neighbours-such good ways she learnt of "Mistress." How well I remember the shining ornaments of her kitchen, and her old friendly face, not [the] least ornamental part of it. Excuse the haste I write in. I am unexpectedly to go out to dinner, else I think I have much more to say, but I will not put it off till next post, because you so kindly say I must not write if I feel unwilling-you do not know what very great joy I have in being again writing to you. Thank you for sending the letter of Mr. Evans, it was a very kind one. Have you received one from a Cornet Burgoine? My brother wrote to him and desires he would direct his answer to your brother. God bless you and yours my dear friend. NOTE M. LAMB. ["Dream, but of their most wakeful sense found this. Dr. Beddoes, who was attending Mrs. Clarkson, would be, I suppose, Thomas Beddoes of Clifton (1760-1808), the father of Thomas Lovell Beddoes and a friend of Coleridge and Southey. In a letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to Mrs. Clarkson, dated April 19, 1805 (recently printed by Mr. Hale White in the Athenæum), we read:: I have great pleasure in thinking that you may see Miss Lamb; do not miss it if you can possibly go without injury to yourself-they are the best good creatures -blessings be with them! they have sympathised in our sorrow as tenderly as if they had grown up in the same [town?] with us and known our beloved John from his childhood. Charles has written to us the most consolatory letters, the result of diligent and painful inquiry of the survivors of the wreck,-for this we must love him as long as we have breath. I think of him and his sister every day of my life, and many times in the day with thankfulness and blessings. Talk to dear Miss Lamb about coming into this country and let us hear what she says of it. I cannot express how much we all wish to see her and her brother while we are at Grasmere. We look forward to Coleridge's return with fear and painful hope-but indeed I dare not look to it-I think as little as I can of him.] 1805 MARY LAMB LETTER 133 CHARLES LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH [Slightly torn. The conjectures in square brackets are Talfourd's.] MY 311 Friday, 14th June, 1805. Y dear Miss Wordsworth, Your long kind letter has not been thrown away (for it has given me great pleasure to find you are all resuming your old occupations, and are better) but poor Mary to whom it is addrest cannot yet relish it. She has been attacked by one of her severe illnesses, and is at present from home. Last Monday week was the day she left me; and I hope I may calculate upon having her again in a month, or little more. I am rather afraid late hours have in this case contributed to her indisposition. But when she begins to discover symptoms of approaching illness, it is not easy to say what is best to do. Being by ourselves is bad, and going out is bad. I get so irritable and wretched with fear, that I constantly hasten on the disorder. You cannot conceive the misery of such a foresight. I am sure that for the week before she left me, I was little better than light-headed. I now am calm, but sadly taken down, and flat. I have every reason to suppose that this illness, like all her former ones, will be but temporary; but I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. All my strength is gone, and I am like a [fool, ber]eft of her co-operation. I dare not think, lest I [should think] wrong; so used am I to look up to her [in the least] and the biggest perplexity. To say all that [I know of her] would be more than I think any body could [believe or even understand; and when I hope to have her well [again with me] it would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her: for I can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older, and wiser, and better, than me, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. She lives but for me. And I know I have been wasting and teazing her life for five years past incessantly with my cursed drinking and ways of going on. But even in this up-braiding of myself I am offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved to me for better, for worse; and if the balance has been against her hitherto, it was a noble trade. I am stupid and lose myself in what I write. I write rather what answers to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp enough) than express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid. Poor Miss Stoddart! she is coming to England under the notion of passing her time between her mother and Mary, between London and Salisbury. Since she talk'd of coming, word has been sent to Malta that her Mother is gone out of her mind. This Letter, with mine to Stoddart with an account of Allen's death, &c., has miscarried (taken by the French) [word missing]. She is coming home, with no soul to receive [words missing]. She has not a womanfriend in London. I am sure you will excuse my writing [any more, I] am very poorly. I cannot resist tra[nscribing] three or four Lines which poor Mary made upon a Picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an Auction only one week before she left home. She was then beginning to show signs of ill boding. They are sweet Lines, and upon a sweet Picture. But I send them, only as the last memorial of her. VIRGIN AND CHILD. L. DA VINCI Maternal Lady with the Virgin-grace, Lady most perfect, when thy angel face A Catholic, Madona fair, to worship thee. You had her lines about the "Lady Blanch." You have not had some which she wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, which I had hung up where that print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung, in our room. "Tis light and pretty. Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place Of Blanch, the Lady of the matchless grace? Come, fair and pretty, tell to me Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be? Thou pretty art and fair, But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare. No need for Blanch her history to tell, Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well. But when I look on thee, I only know There liv'd a pretty maid some hundred years ago. This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all. But my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. That you may go on gathering strength and peace is the next wish to Mary's recovery. I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Supposing that Mary will be well and able, there is another ability which you may guess at, which I cannot promise myself. In prudence we 1805 MANNING IN LONDON 313 ought not to come. This illness will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance of this way of spending our money against another way, but an absolute question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little we have got beforehand, which my wise conduct has already incroach'd upon one half. My best Love, however, to you all; and to that most friendly creature, Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see or write to her. C. LAMB. NOTE [The reference to Miss Stoddart is explained later, in Letter No. 135. Mary Lamb's two poems were included in the Works, 1818. "Lady Blanch" is the poem quoted on page 290.] DEA LETTER 134 CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [Dated by Mr. Hazlitt: July 27, 1805.] EAR Archimedes,-Things have gone on badly with thy ungeometrical friend; but they are on the turn. My old housekeeper has shown signs of convalescence, and will shortly resume the power of the keys, so I shan't be cheated of my tea and liquors. Wind in the west, which promotes tranquillity. Have leisure now to anticipate seeing thee again. Have been taking leave of tobacco in a rhyming address. Had thought that vein had long since closed up. [A sentence omitted here.] Find I can rhyme and reason too. Think of studying mathematics, to restrain the fire of my genius, which G. D. recommends. Have frequent bleedings at the nose, which shows plethoric. Maybe shall try the sea myself, that great scene of wonders. Got incredibly sober and regular; shave oftener, and hum a tune, to signify cheerfulness and gallantry. Suddenly disposed to sleep, having taken a quart of pease with bacon and stout. Will not refuse Nature, who has done such things for me! Nurse! don't call me unless Mr. Manning comes.-What! the gentleman in spectacles ?-Yes. Dormit. C. L. Saturday, Hot Noon. NOTE ["Have been taking leave of tobacco." See page 317; also page |